ISOCARDIA COR, L., IN THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 43 



but it is by the name bestowed on it by Lamarck 

 that we now know it. So suggestive is the shell 

 of the form of a heart, that generic and specific 

 names, both relating to that object, have been given 

 to it — the former being from the Greek, the latter 

 from the Latin. In France, as Jeffreys tells us, the 

 shell is called " cceur-de-boeuf," or ox-heart, and in 

 Holland " zots-kappen," or fool's cap. 



Isocardia cannot be said to be generally distributed 

 in British seas. The only locality where it has 

 hitherto been frequently obtained is in deep water 

 off the east coast of Ireland, out from County Dublin, 

 where it is taken by trawlers. Here it is met "with 

 fixed in the mud, having (as is to be gathered from 

 its behaviour in a vessel with sand and sea-water) 

 its umbones or beaks covered by the mud, and little 

 visible but the orifices of the mantle-tubes directed 

 upwards. Placed thus, and every now and then 

 contracting its powerful adductors, it brings the 

 valves of the shell together with a jerk, creating a 

 current, and slowly sifting out of the "svater the 

 microscopic organisms which form its food. 



In addition to the quarter referred to, Isocardia 

 is also met with off the south coast of Ireland, 

 where Bantry Bay and the Cove of Cork are given 

 as localities. In Britain, Forbes and Hanley report 

 it from off the Cornish coast, and it has also been 

 met with in the West of Scotland, though very 

 sparingly.* 



It is a rather remarkable circumstance that though 

 valves and fragments of Isocardia have at times been 

 dredged in the Clyde estuary, never till during the 

 summer of last year were specimens obtained in the 

 living state. Canon Norman, some thirty years ago, as 

 is recorded in the pages of the Zoologist (1857-60), met 

 with t-w'o or three single valves in deep water between 

 the Cumbraes ; but so little store was set by this 

 fact, that Mr. Alfred Brown, in his Mollusca of the 



* Since this paper was read, Isocardia cor, L., has been take 

 .alive by Mr. Thomas Scott in the Moray Firth 



